Deborah Gabriel, 40, has been arrested for brutalizing her housemaid, Glory Ugbon, and then putting pepper in her eyes and private part because hunger pushed her into stealing a plate of rice, Punch reports.
The body of Glory, who has just spent 5 months with the trader, is filled with marks, indicating that she had been brutalized many times in the past.
Glory's elder sister made her follow Deborah down to Lagos after her visit to Akwa Ibom State in November, 2015, with a promise that she would put her in school and my sister told me that she would treat me well. But Glory said: "Since November that she brought me to Lagos, she has not talked about any school for me.
The woman is not related to us. I work at home all the time but sometimes when she is not happy with me, she beats me till I cannot walk." Glory, who was in Primary 3 before she left her parents, said on Sunday, April 10, she was simply eating at the backyard of their house, when Deborah accused her of stealing food.
Her words: “When she was tired of beating me, she forced my legs apart and rubbed some pepper that she had just ground in my eyes and my private part." When the pain became unbearable, neighbors raised the alarm when they learnt what the woman did to the girl.
A correspondent of Punch had to take her to Mirabel Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Ikeja, Lagos for treatment because she would not stop complaining about the pepper, some of which had become lodged inside her. On Tuesday, Deborah was charged with child abuse and assault against a minor.
She was remanded at the Kirikiri Prison, pending the perfection of her bail. Founder and Coordinator of the Jeshabel Touch-A-Heart Foundation, Favour Benson, who took up the girl’s case, said Glory is being given refuge in a state government home in Lagos but that effort would be made to contact her parents so that they could take custody of her.
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